House panel votes to block HPV order

Panel votes to block HPV vaccine requirement

JANET ELLIOTT, Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

Published 6:30 am, Thursday, February 22, 2007

AUSTIN — A House committee handed a stinging rebuke to Gov. Rick Perry by voting to rescind his executive order requiring pre-teen girls to be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.

Wednesday's Public Health Committee vote was 6-3, with all the Republican members and one Democrat voting to reverse Perry's order. Three other Democrats voted against the bill, which now goes to the full House for consideration.

Passage is all but guaranteed since 90 of the 150 House members have signed on as co-sponsors, said the author of House Bill 1098, Rep. Dennis Bonnen.

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"I'm very pleased that the majority of the committee saw the wisdom of not putting every 11-year-old girl into a mandated situation of a vaccination that we don't know all the facts about," said Bonnen, R-Angleton.

Perry spokesman Robert Black said the committee's vote doesn't change the governor's position.

"He believes the state should do everything it can to protect young women from getting cancer," Black said. "He has encouraged the Legislature to have a vigorous debate on this issue. They are."

Perry has said that cancer has touched several members of his family and that he is determined to use his authority to try and reduce the deadly disease. He also wants to sell the Texas Lottery to help fund anti-cancer efforts.

But the governor has alienated many social conservatives who have been key to his political fortunes with the requirement that pre-teens be inoculated against the most common sexually transmitted virus. Parents would be able to opt out their daughter.

Preventing future mandate?

In addition to rescinding Perry's executive order, Bonnen's bill would prevent the state from mandating the vaccine for school admission in the future.

Although many Democrats have supported Perry's order, some are now saying it would be better for him to recall it.

"He created a firestorm that has taken the place of public policy. Now this decision is being made on emotion," said Rep. Garnet Coleman, a Houston Democrat who voted against Bonnen's bill.

Rep. Veronica Gonzales, D-McAllen, said she is concerned that many young women in her district won't get the vaccine, which protects against four strains of HPV that cause 70 percent of cervical cancer. The Texas border region and parts of East Texas have some of the highest rates of cervical cancer in the nation.

Gonzales said if efforts to educate families about HPV fail, then the state's health and human services commissioner won't be able to issue a mandate because of the ban.

The vaccine, a first in cancer prevention, received government approval last June. Critics of Perry's order have said it is too new to be on the list of shots needed for school.

The Texas Medical Association has said that the vaccine shouldn't be mandated, citing in part the high cost of the three-shot regime, which starts at $360.

Since federal health authorities have recommended the vaccine for females ages 9 to 26, it will be covered under the Vaccines for Children program. Starting in April, the shots will be available for the uninsured and those on government health programs such as Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Public Health Chairman Dianne Delisi, R-Temple, said she was concerned that the controversy about the HPV vaccine could have impacted parents' willingness to have their children immunized for communicable diseases such as measles, mumps and whooping cough.

"I just want to be sure that those stay in place," she said.

Texas law allows parents to fill out a form and opt their children out of vaccines needed for school.

The committee heard six hours of sometimes emotional testimony Monday night. Texas physicians and even some cervical-cancer patients offered differing views on whether the vaccine should be required or simply encouraged for girls before they become sexually active.

The only vaccine approved for HPV is Merck's Gardasil. On Tuesday, the pharmaceutical giant abandoned its lobbying push to get laws passed in states requiring the shots for school enrollment.

Merck donation

Company officials said they didn't want the widely publicized lobbying campaign to be a distraction in making the first-ever vaccine against cancer widely available.

Perry's chief of staff, Deirdre Delisi — Perry's chief of staff and Rep. Delisi's daughter-in-law — and other aides met to discuss the state's immunization program, including the HPV vaccine, on Oct. 16, 2006, the same day Merck donated $5,000 to the governor's re-election campaign, according to records released by the governor's office. Black said the timing was coincidental and no HPV mandate was being considered at the time.

Perry's order would make Texas the first state to mandate the shots.

Bonnen has said that he thinks it would be better to improve access to health care so that women can get annual Pap smears to detect abnormal cells that could be an early indicator of cervical cancer.

Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, who has filed a bill to require the vaccine, said that Pap smears don't catch all of cervical cancers. "The bottom line is the vaccine is going to protect young girls. This is something that incubates for 10 years," said Farrar.